سليمان بن عبد الملك
Seventh Umayyad caliph (96-99 AH/715-717 CE), son of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, he was probably born in Medina about 55 AH, governed the district of Filastin under al-Walid, and acceded unchallenged in 96 AH. His reign saw the great campaign against Constantinople, which ended in an unsuccessful siege, and he died at Dabiq in 99 AH.
Reign · Umayyad Caliphate · no. 7 in the chain · 715–717 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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The Umayyad al-Aqsa mosque completed under al-Walid I
The Umayyad mosque of Jerusalem was a hypostyle building: many aisles perpendicular to the qibla with a wider central nave on the axis of the Dome of the Rock, reusing earlier materials, and it was either built from scratch or completed under the caliph al-Walid I; Abd al-Malik had built on the earlier foundation, as al-Muqaddasi reports. It served as the city's congregational mosque and as the roofed part of the whole Haram.
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The Founding of al-Ramla
In al-Baladhuri: al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik gave his brother Sulayman command of the Filastin jund, and he settled at Lydda then founded the city of al-Ramla and made it an amsar — the first thing he built being his palace and the house known as Dar al-Sabbaghin with a central cistern, then he laid out the mosque's plan and built it, taking the caliphate before completing it and finishing it in his reign, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz completing it while reducing the plan, saying 'the people of al-Ramla are content with this measure'; when Sulayman built for himself he gave people leave to build and they did, digging the canal called Barada and wells for them, a Christian clerk of Lydda named al-Batriq ibn al-Nakka overseeing the expenditure on the works and the congregational mosque; the city of al-Ramla did not exist before Sulayman, its site being a sandy tract; the Umayyads spent on its wells and canal after him, then the Abbasids did likewise, the charge issuing yearly from caliph to caliph until al-Mu'tasim entered it in the register, whence it became a standing annuity reckoned to the claimants.
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Al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah's Governorship of Armenia
In al-Baladhuri: Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik gave Armenia to Adi ibn Adi ibn Amira al-Kindi — Adi ibn Amira being one of those who settled al-Raqqa having parted with Ali ibn Abi Talib — then Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz appointed him, he being the owner of the Nahr Adi at al-Baylaqan, though some say Umar's governor was Hatim ibn al-Nu'man, which is unsound; then Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik appointed Mi'laq ibn Saffar al-Bahrani, removed him for al-Harith ibn Amr al-Ta'i, who raided the Lakz and took Rustaq Hamsadan; and al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami of Mudhhij governed Armenia, settling at Bardha'a, where its conflicting measures and weights were laid before him and he set them on justice and fulness, making a measure called al-Jarrahi which its people deal by to this day; then he crossed the Kurr and marched until he passed the river called al-Samur, reaching the Khazars and killing them in a great slaughter, and fought the people of Bilad Hamzin, then compounded with them to transfer them to a rustaq.